Friend evicting elderly tenant

[AppalachianWoman]

Would it change the way you felt about your friend if he evicted an elderly (70+) tenant so he could move into the house instead? The rent was paid upfront through a lifetime of agricultural labor from late childhood but the friend who recently inherited the estate feels they are owed cash payments and the property. The tenant cannot read or write and was widowed a year or two ago, has no children of his own but some step children from his marriage. The friend currently occupies another, smaller, property on the estate and was expected to move into the largest house which is very grand indeed but requires extensive renovation. He is daunted by the work and expense and has instead become fixated on the property the elderly farmhand lives in.

It feels emotionally immature of me to drop a friend over a difference in values but I am shocked that he would even consider this course of action. I don’t want to be friends with someone who acts this way, how can I exit gracefully or should I try to support him as he has supported me emotionally through decades of friendship?

.Also I can’t rule out the possibility that I’m envious of his good fortune and the opportunities it creates

How is it good fortune if your friend isn’t going to cash in and turn this failing farm into cash in the bank
He knows nothing about farming, his first thoughts weren’t to find out about farming and how the business works but to prettify a cottage.
Your friend and anyone else who has inherited this Estate if they are not smart enough to know that farming is hard work for very little money they are going to be bankrupt in a couple of years and any money they have will be spent propping up this white elephant.
Your friends reminds me to a certain extent of those people who were given farms in Zimbabwe after the white Zimbabwean farmers who ran them successfully were kicked out. They thought you could just sit around and do nothing and the money and lifestyle would come to them
Now the country struggles to feed itself and the people who kept food on the table of the nation are long gone.
Jeremy Clarkson might make good tv viewing figures with the antics on his farm but beneath the comedy there is a serious side. The fact that if he relied on farming it brought in only £45 in his first year. As he said if he didn’t do WWTBAM and had money already and only had to rely on his farming income he would have gone under.

There is nothing to be envious about this inheritance. Your friend is a dickhead who might think he is the Big Landowner and can throw his weight around but he needs people who know what they are doing and a lot of goodwill and help and if it gets out that he is even thinking of throwing this guy out then the people he needs around him will be in very short supply.

She has already said- the guy doesn't want to as he's renovated the 3 bed house his family live in partially, not sure why that's an issue but seems it is.

A lot of my family had left school by the time they were 12. My mother left at 14 aunt at 15

Lots of people especially in farming communities started working on the farms at 12 or 13.

I know! My Dad is 72 and fitter than me!

Eugh I couldn't respect someone who does this.

I need to be morally aligned with friends.

A lifetime of hard agricultural work ages the body.

Are we back to killing Grandad now?
I sort of missed that from lockdown. 😆

The man is not elderly. He's not 90. He's 72 and retired. He has worked his whole life for one employer. As part of that employment contract, his accommodation was included - nothing shabby - a 4-bed house. He has retired and has made no provisions for moving out or providing himself with accommodation. If he was led to believe that he had a lifetime tenancy, then the OP has a point. The OP doesn't appear to know that particular piece of info though. But who the hell believes that they can live an entire life on someone else's' property? I'm literate but a bit dopey at times. Does that excuse me from contracts? Fuck no!

Personally, there's a house up the road which I quite fancy. Have I the right to live there until death if I'm their cleaner for a lifetime?

The nephew has now inherited the estate and as the evil landowner owns 3 properties on the estate but lives in the smallest property. The estate is haemorrhaging money.

While I'm sure that the 'nephew' would love to keep the elderly man in situ, the nephew may well end up on his arse quicker than the elderly man!

If my dc inherited my property and someone found it appropriate to plonk their entitled behinds in my dc's property, I'd come back and haunt them!

My father is a farmer.

That is a supremely rotten thing to do. Make sure your friend knows how utterly immoral he's being, and if he refuses to back down then invite your village/town/area to help find somewhere for this elderly man to go.

Fucking landlords.

What about the landowner and his wife?

Do they own the property? Or should we all be donating everything we have to the elderly?

This is a ridiculous conversation.

He hasn't plonked his behind anywhere, you talk as though the he's some random who's rocked up and started squatting. He's put in 50+ years of hard graft for a pittance and a roof over his head.

Bollocks to the landowner.

I very much doubt that or you’d understand agricultural tenancies pre 1989.

I can guarantee you that my father is a farmer.

Ask me whatever you like to prove it to you. Don't just stupidly state that I'm lying.

Yanbu I would drop him like a hot coal and tell him exactly why.

In which case get him to explain agricultural tenancies to you because you clearly know nothing about them.

on large estates it is often the case that retired workers have a lifetime time tenancy and this can be with or without rent depending on the situation. Also there is a need to check the will of the deceased estate owner to make sure if the situation was covered in that as well. Basically they need to go and find documentation to establish the situation. One man in a 4 bed house on the surface does not sound reasonable so it would be worthwhile looking at what can be done about it. There may be no tenancy agreement either in which case you need to establish what if any assumed agreement there is which will depend on when they moved in etc. On the face value of information I would be tempted to research it a bit myself to understand what I can but if they go ahead with this I would be looking to cut off contact as morally it wouldn't sit right with me. You can work with the law and still morally do the right thing by ensuring they are housed somewhere suitable with access to help to get any benefits etc they are entitled to

He's a bit thick. Left school at 14. He wouldn't understand.

As I said upthread, I can see an argument that a four-bedroom farmhouse might no longer be the most suitable housing for one elderly person, it’s a lot to cope with. Even suggesting that he moves into a three-bedroom property isn’t ideal. But your friend has inherited this situation and if he wants the gentleman to move, he needs to do the legwork and find him somewhere suitable to live.

OP Show your god awful friend these replies

There may well not be the money for this, but if in the friend’s position would make emergency repairs only on the Big House to keep the place intact, such as the roof. After getting proper planning and legal advice, I’d bring in a prefab tiny house with mod cons that would be easier to heat and maintain, and facilitate the elderly tenant’s move there with a lifetime tenancy. After he passes, it could be rented out to a farm worker or young couple. Life is about choosing the right, which is often harder than the expedient.

Of course, the tenant would not pay rent.

@Doodadoo you honestly have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Anybody living in a house on an assured tenancy has a lifetime interest plus a succession to a spouse or other family member living with them. All pre 89 tenancies, whether a farm worker or a normal tenancy have these rights. The rent board also set the rent for these houses.

If we're going to be fannies about spelling, the "ae" in "mediaeval" was originally one letter representing a diphthong - "æ". So it would have been "mediæval". We don't use this letter now, any more than we use "þ" ("thorn" - we use "th" instead).

Mediaeval is both right and wrong - it's a transliteration, I suppose, but not many people would use it now.

Meanwhile, back on the farm . . .

If he will treat his tenant this way. Watch out! He will treat you in a similar fashion.